


A Strange New World

by silveryink



Category: His Dark Materials (TV), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Mild Injury, The Subtle Knife Spoilers, Why yes I am fixing Alamo Gulch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:40:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22102720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silveryink/pseuds/silveryink
Summary: “Don’t you go before I do.”“Lee, I couldn’t abide to be anywhere away from you for a single second."The balloon was gone, and now it was time to walk the earth. Lee was familiar enough with the skies, but the land always promised new paths...
Comments: 2
Kudos: 47





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, everyone, and a belated Happy New Year!  
> This story is a fill for [this meme](https://silveryinkystar.tumblr.com/post/190039867427/his-dark-materials-meme) on Tumblr, it's my first time trying something like this but I'm excited - I've already got a few ideas planned out.  
> This checks off one of my favourite (and most emotional) quotes in the series, namely the exchange between Hester and Lee as they fight during their last scenes in The Subtle Knife (as in the summary), as well as the first of 8 characters - Lee.  
> I may return to this idea later, but this short twist on _Alamo Gulch_ kept buzzing around and fit perfectly with the layout of the meme.  
> Hope you all enjoy!

The harsh sounds of the zeppelin engine roared in Lee’s ears, growing in volume as it descended fast into the slope beneath them. Lee squinted at the blue-clad figures who dismounted, wolf-dæmons right at their side, and cursed softly.

“They’re after me, Mr. Scoresby,” Stanislaus Grumman said softly.

Lee raised a brow. “So you think turnin’ myself in might keep me alive?” He snorted, and added, “Get moving.”

Lee swung his rifle off his shoulder and readied it with the practiced ease of a man far too used to fighting, far more than Lee wanted, if he were being honest. “I brought you this far, I ain’t going to sit back and let ‘em catch you now.”

“I had no strength to bring the fourth one down,” Grumman said apologetically, and Lee stared incredulously at the man. The shaman had done more to stop the soldiers than Lee could have after three lifetimes.

“Look,” he said, finding that he absolutely needed Grumman’s assurance, “I can’t tell you what side I’m fighting for, and right now I can’t bring myself to care. Just tell me this: is this going to help Lyra, or harm her?”

He took a step towards Grumman, who replied rather hastily, “It’s going to help her.”

Lee nodded. “And your oath. You won’t forget what you swore to me?”

“I won’t forget.”

Lee narrowed his eyes and pointed his rifle at the other man, who knew as well as he did that he wasn’t actually being threatened. “Because, Doctor Grumman, or John Parry, you better be aware of this. I love that little child like a daughter. If I’d had a child of my own, I couldn’t love her more. And, so help me, if you break the oath, whatever remains of me will pursue whatever remains of you, and you’ll spend the rest of eternity regretting it.”

Okay, perhaps he was threatening him. A little.

The explorer raised his hands in surrender. “I understand.”

They kept moving, past the boulders into the mouth of the gulch. Lee was fully prepared to stop and fend of the inevitable attack, but something seemed to be pulling him to move with John Parry – with no less caution, of course, but move nonetheless. As he slowed, a sharp tug at his heart gave him the answer. “Hester,” he called sharply.

His dæmon hopped back to him. “I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “It’s a stupid idea to stay back. The man’s a soldier, he can help you hold them off while you both escape.”

“Hester, we don’t know where we’re headin’,” Lee said, without any heat in his words. He sighed and dropped to his knees, reaching out to stroke her fur gently. “It’s our lives or Lyra’s.”

Hester shook her head. “You heard Miss Pekkala, she needs us. And we need her.”

“She’s right,” John Parry said. Lee looked up to find the man standing right where he had been before Lee had stopped, and felt a bit touched that he hadn’t thought to leave him behind. “Mr. Scoresby, I believe we have a better chance together.”

Lee huffed. “I know, I know.” He made to stand, but the sudden bang of a gun and something whizzing past Lee’s ear sent him back down. John Parry ducked behind the boulder opposite them, and Lee slid over his revolver with a nod.

Hester peered at him. Suddenly, the reality of the situation they were in hit Lee, and he said, slightly desperately, “Don’t you go before I do.”

“Lee, I couldn’t abide to be anywhere away from you for a single second,” Hester promised. Her ears twitched. “Straight ahead,” she said, and Lee shifted position automatically. He ignored the sound of John firing at the Muscovite soldier and rested his hand on Hester’s head. She leaned into the touch, short as it was. Lee lifted his rifle. And fired.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Appears in a puff of smoke* I come bearing another au where Lee survives!  
> Updates might be sporadic because I'm writing this as I go along. The ultimate outcome of this story is undecided, but Lee is going to stay alive for the rest of it. Hope you all enjoy!

The first sign that things weren’t going the way Lee expected was when more soldiers joined the ranks of Magisterium men. A stray gunshot caught him by surprise – he’d only counted ten when another had joined in on what he assumed was the sixth wave (he’d lost count after a while), and a delayed shot had distracted him enough that he ducked just a moment too late. Hester’s ears twitched, and she muttered, “Exactly a dozen now.”

Sayan Kötör had flown high above the treeline and now dove at the wolf-daemons with a single screech. The officers were taken aback by her appearance, Lee fired twice without hesitation at the two men who forgot their place and shifted away from the cover of the boulders. _Ten to go_ , Lee thought, shaking off the morbidity of the phrase.

John levelled his revolver and fired as well, striking another officer in the neck. The snow at their feet was soaked in red. Lee risked another shot; luckily, one of the officers seemed to have the same intention and Lee heard the bang of his weapon a split-second after his own. As he ducked hastily, white-hot pain shot through his left shoulder. He gritted his teeth and inhaled sharply. He was nearly certain he’d been hit, but there wasn’t any way he could tell exactly where. All he knew was that his left arm was effectively useless now, save for the jagged fire that threatened to take over him every time he so much as shifted slightly.

There was no time to think about that, though. John cast a momentary look of concern over him and returned, with some level of urgency, to picking off the rest of the officers one by one. Lee fell silent, even as a new sound entered the fray. A distinct sound, like a sail flapping in the wind, and a spear whizzing across and lodging itself into its target. Lee chanced a glance – true enough, it was a witch’s bolt. He exhaled on a laugh and turned his gaze to the sky.

Serafina Pekkala pulled back her arm, already releasing another bolt into the remaining Magisterium officers before using her momentum to phase in the middle of their ranks, ending them much in the way she took care of the Tartars in Bolvangar.

Lee grunted as John shuffled over to him and pulled his coat down with an absent apology. Hester raised herself to his side and peered down at the wound. “Mr. Scoresby, I’m afraid this will hurt,” was all the warning he gave before he pressed down on it with a square of fabric. Lee bit back a yelp as John Parry pulled the layers of leather back over the cloth carefully.

“I’m sorry, I don’t have a bandage-”

“I’ve had worse,” Lee grunted. “Had to fish out a bullet myself, once. Never quite healed right, but what can you do?”

John looked appalled, but didn’t say more. Sayan Kötör flapped her wings once and the two men looked up at Serafina. The queen looked worried about Lee’s condition but delivered her message quickly that Lyra was with the rest of her clan, along with a boy and a knife.

Lee met John’s gaze pointedly as the man helped him to his feet. John shrugged noncommittally.

“I’m afraid we must hasten to the camp,” she added. “The boy has been bleeding for a better part of the day, since we found him. Even our – my spells did not stop it.”

John nodded. “The new bearer of the knife usually pays a price. Legends distorted what it was exactly, but it requires a few specific medicines to help it. Fortunately, I have some bloodmoss ointment that might help.”

“Can’t you use that on me?” Lee asked lightly.

“Not until I’m sure the bullet isn’t still inside you, Mr. Scoresby,” the shaman returned mildly.

Lee raised his brow, stumbling on the rocky path in his haste to keep up with Serafina. He cursed softly as it sent up another wave of agony through his arm but fell silent and turned his concentration to keeping himself on his feet for the remainder of the journey. Fortunately, he succeeded at his goal, at least right up until they reached the temporary camp the witches had set up. His legs gave out and John caught him in time, slinging an arm around his waist to support him.

If Lee hadn’t been so tired, he thought he might have been a bit embarrassed. His feelings on the matter were of no importance, however, since the soreness in his side from rattling about in the balloon alighted in the way fire did when someone jabbed at coals with a poker. It had been a long time since he’d seen an actual fireplace, so he could be wrong. That didn’t make the fire-poker sensation go away. He flinched away from John’s grip, and the other man immediately pulled his hand away with alarm. Serafina Pekkala turned just then to notice the two men lagging a few steps behind when John directed her attention to his state.

“Mr. Scoresby, do you think you can walk the rest of the way?” she asked. He appreciated the straightforwardness, even as he assessed exactly what he was capable of doing at the moment. Walking seemed like an ordeal but he thought he could manage it, if they were close enough to the camp.

“Think so,” he said softly. Hester trembled next to him, and hopped onward with visible effort. His heart was equally sore as the rest of him, he wished (not for the first time) that the effect a dæmon faced for their human’s injuries was non-existent. Hester would have berated him were she not intent on leading him slowly to the nearest seat at the camp, so he let John take some of his weight and staggered almost drunkenly towards their destination.

It was a relief when he finally sat against a tree. The clan was far from the organised clave he’d witnessed before he’d set out on his mission to find Grumman, but he didn’t dwell on it – not when the shaman was hastily pushing aside layers of clothing to reveal his injuries. Lee grunted as the man pulled away the cloth at his shoulder to inspect it.

“You said something about an ointment?” Serafina Pekkala asked him.

“I’m afraid I cannot apply it until I’m certain the bullet’s out. But you may use it on the boy with the knife, it’s in my pack.”

“The spell I used will be sufficient on a normal wound, Dr. Grumman,” she said, already making for the boy.

John nodded and turned his attention to Lee once more, but the aeronaut was more interested in the witch who stepped out with a cry. “ _Grumman!_ ”

“Not now, sister,” he heard Serafina say sternly, “whatever your past grievances may have been, I must forbid you from confronting him until Mr. Scoresby is hale and out of danger.”

Well. He was touched, but even in his hazed state between numbness and achiness he could put two and two together. “Was she…?”

John hummed in assent. “You seem to be a very lucky man, Mr. Scoresby,” he said. “The bullet appears to have gone through you completely, and only clipped your side. It saves us a lot of time and hurt.”

Lee said nothing. It was true, after all. There was no denying that he was incredibly lucky, not when the worst outcome had been avoided. He reached out for Hester even as John looked for someone who could help him with treating Lee’s injuries, and felt gratified that the universe hadn’t entirely conspired against him after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologise for the gunfight. I truly have no idea how to write physical conflict that doesn't involve archery, swords, and the occasional punches.   
> Fun fact: Lee's voice was hardest for me to get right when I started writing for HDM (look at me now, churning out content about my favourite character).   
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
